Art and Postcapitalism: Aesthetic Labour, Automation and Value Production
- Submitting institution
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University of the Arts, London
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 521
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
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- Publisher
- Pluto
- ISBN
- 9780745339252
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- October
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
-
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Art and Postcapitalism, published by Pluto, redefines the politics of work in contemporary post-capitalist theory by providing a method for distinguishing between real and imagined escape routes from capitalism. Following on from a problem that arose in the writing of the book Art and Value, and developing at a tangent to the broader study Art and Labour, the argument of the book derives from recent debates on value theory in the Marxist tradition and it is from this perspective that the book formulates a critique of the post-capitalist politics of work in the writing of Srnicek and Williams, Paul Mason, Nick Land, Kathi Weeks, Gibson-Graham, John Holloway, Maurizio Lazzarato, Christian Fuchs and others.
Forged in part through dialogues orchestrated through research on the theme of “Art and Work” conducted for Parse as Professor of Art at Valand Academy, Beech replaces the argument for the abolition of work with an inquiry into the specific social form of work characteristic of capitalism. Since work exists long before capitalism, the abolition of work per se cannot be said to be anti-capitalist. Only the wage-form of labour is specific to capitalism and, therefore, it is the subordination of labour to wage and value production that must be addressed by post-capitalist theory. By framing the problem of work in this way, the book overcomes two misrepresentations of art and aesthetic labour, which has either been thought of as an idealised form of non-alienated labour, or an idealised justification of the so-called work ethic. Tracing the historical formation of these debates to the abolition of the craft guilds from the 17th century onwards, the book provides a new theory of the politics of work by establishing a more nuanced narrative for the politics of labour in art.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -